16-letter words containing p, s, r, o
- north massapequa — a city on S Long Island, in SE New York.
- northamptonshire — a county in central England. 914 sq. mi. (2365 sq. km).
- objective spirit — the human spirit, insofar as it has become capable of a rational identification of its individual self with the community of other spirits but is not yet capable of the identification with the absolute idea that characterizes the absolute spirit.
- observation post — a forward position, often on high ground, from which enemy activity can be observed and, particularly, from which artillery or mortar fire can be directed.
- obstreperousness — resisting control or restraint in a difficult manner; unruly.
- october surprise — a major event, occurring shortly before a presidential election, which influences the result
- odontoid process — the toothlike upward projection at the back of the second vertebra of the neck
- oesophagogastric — (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the oesophagus and the stomach.
- on the scrapheap — (of people or things) having outlived their usefulness
- on your doorstep — If a place is on your doorstep, it is very near to where you live. If something happens on your doorstep, it happens very close to where you live.
- one-party system — a political system in which only one party is allowed
- open parenthesis — left parenthesis
- open scholarship — a scholarship which anyone can apply for
- operating system — (operating system) (OS) The low-level software which handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running. The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks, often acting as servers in a client-server relationship. Some would include a graphical user interface and window system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs. Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS, Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil, COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2, GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS, MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68, Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX, RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix, VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
- operating-system — the collection of software that directs a computer's operations, controlling and scheduling the execution of other programs, and managing storage, input/output, and communication resources. Abbreviation: OS.
- ophthalmoparesis — (medicine) A partial or complete paralysis of the extraocular muscles which are responsible for eye movements.
- opportunity cost — the money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course of action instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative: The company cannot afford the opportunity cost attached to policy decisions made by the current CEO.
- opportunity shop — a shop selling second-hand goods for charitable funds
- opposed-cylinder — (of an internal-combustion engine) having cylinders on opposite sides of the crankcase in the same plane
- optical tweezers — a laser device used to study, manipulate, or trap a microscopic object, as a microorganism or cell, with nanometer precision.
- organ transplant — an operation in which an organ is transplanted from a donor
- organophosphates — Plural form of organophosphate.
- organophosphorus — Denoting synthetic organic compounds containing phosphorus, especially pesticides and nerve gases of this kind.
- orthosympathetic — Of or pertaining to the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system.
- osmotic pressure — the force that a dissolved substance exerts on a semipermeable membrane, through which it cannot penetrate, when separated by it from pure solvent.
- over-consumption — the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction.
- over-descriptive — having the quality of describing; characterized by description: a descriptive passage in an essay.
- over-speculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- overcompensating — Present participle of overcompensate.
- overcompensation — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- overcompensatory — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- oversubscription — to subscribe for more of than is available, expected, or required: The charity drive was oversubscribed by several thousand dollars.
- pacific sturgeon — a dark gray sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, inhabiting marine and fresh waters along the northwestern coast of North America, valued as a food and sport fish.
- padded shoulders — (on a garment) shoulders lined, stuffed, or filled out with soft material, esp in order to give them a higher or wider shape
- pair of scissors — two-bladed cutting tool
- pairs tournament — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
- palmerston north — a city in New Zealand, in the S North Island on the Manawatu River. Pop: 78 100 (2004 est)
- panoramic screen — a very wide screen, as of a television, etc
- paraprofessional — a person trained to assist a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or other professional, but not licensed to practice in the profession.
- parasol mushroom — a common edible field mushroom, Macrolepiota (Lepiota) procera, having a light-brown, scaly cap.
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- parkerhouse roll — a yeast roll shaped by folding over a flat, round piece of buttered dough
- parochial school — a primary or secondary private school supervised by a religious organization, especially a Roman Catholic day school affiliated with a parish or a holy order.
- parrot's-feather — a South American water milfoil, Myriophyllum aquaticum, having hairlike pinnate leaves, widely cultivated as an aquarium plant.
- parser generator — A program which takes a formal description of a grammar (e.g. in BNF) and outputs source code for a parser which will recognise valid strings obeying that grammar and perform associated actions. Unix's yacc is a well known example.
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- pascal's theorem — the theorem that the lines joining adjacent vertices of a hexagon intersect the same straight line if alternate vertices lie on two intersecting straight lines.
- passenger pigeon — an extinct pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, once found in great numbers in North America, noted for its sustained migratory flights.
- passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
- past progressive — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the past tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that an action or event was incomplete or in progress at a point of reference in the past, as was sleeping in I was sleeping when the phone rang.